BishopAccountability.org
	Our View: the Pope and the Sex Abuse Scandal By Wayne Laugesen Colorado Springs Gazette March 20, 2010 http://www.gazette.com/opinion/scandal-95950-abuse-pope.html UNITED STATES -- Recent news reports have taken the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church to an unprecedented level, trying to link it to Pope Benedict XVI — possibly the most powerful religious leader in the world. The media have done a laudable job scrutinizing Catholic hierarchy, much to the benefit of children. It would be nice if there were as much concern about the millions of children raped, groped and molested outside of the church, by people who aren't quite as newsworthy as priests but have at least as much authority over our youths. The latest church stories have examined the pope's reign as archbishop of Munich from March 1977 to February 1982. Reports have revealed at least one case of an abusive priest who was reassigned while working under then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, and the abuser went on to abuse again. Priests don't answer directly to an archbishop, and the man who served as vicar general at the time — the man whom priests did answer to directly when Ratzinger was archbishop — has taken full responsibility. He says Ratzinger was not informed of the allegations and transfer. Still, the archbishop is ultimately responsible for what goes on in his organization, so the scrutiny is fair. John Allen, Jr., a Denver-based writer for the National Catholic Reporter, wrote that as leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the position he held before becoming pope, Ratzinger may have been the most vigilant defender of children in church hierarchy. Allen spent years covering Ratzinger while working as the Vatican correspondent for the Reporter and later as a correspondent for CNN. "Of the 500-plus cases that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dealt with prior to Benedict's election to the papacy, the substantial majority were returned to the local bishop authorizing immediate action against the accused priest — no canonical trial, no lengthy process, just swift removal from ministry and, often, expulsion from the priesthood," Allen wrote. "In a more limited number of cases, the congregation asked for a canonical trial, and in a few cases, the congregation ordered the priest reinstated… In the complex world of court politics at the Vatican, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith became the beachhead for an aggressive response to the sexual abuse crisis. Ratzinger and his deputies sometimes squared off against other departments which regarded the 'zero tolerance' policy as an over-reaction." It's hard to imagine an over-reaction to credible evidence that a priest has abused anyone. Yet some in the church have confused legitimate abuse allegations as part of a blatant and thorough media attack on Catholicism. If Allen is correct about then-Cardinal Ratzinger's hand-ling of sexual abuse, then Pope Benedict XVI is someone who could set a constructive example for the vast culture of ranking public school officials who have ignored a much larger sexual abuse crisis for years. "Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love," stated an Associated Press report on a yearlong study the agency concluded in 2007. The series reported that public school administrators routinely transfer abusive teachers from one school district to the next. "The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests," wrote Carol Shakeshaft, author of a U.S. Department of Education study ordered by Congress in 2002. Sherryll Kraizer, executive director of the Denver-based Safe Child Program, told The Gazette's editorial department that it's commonplace for public school principals and teachers to neglect laws that require them to report sexual abuse. "I see it regularly," said Kraizer, a professional witness for prosecutors and defense lawyers in childhood sexual abuse cases. "There are laws against failing to report, but the law is almost never enforced. Almost never." The media are to be applauded for relentlessly exposing the scandal in the church, and even the pope isn't above honest and thorough scrutiny of his past service. But the much larger crisis remains in our public schools today, where children are raped and groped every day in the United States. The media and others must maintain their watchful eye on the Catholic Church and other religious institutions. But it's no less tragic when a child gets abused at school.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.